- Porsche to develop Mission E variants as part of £5.3bn investment – Autocar: The Mission E is due to launch in 2019. VW Group to double investment in electromobility, including electrified versions of current range and development of forthcoming sports EV
- The Uber trial exposing dirty secrets of Silicon Valley’s greatest innovators – Guardian: Last February, just as Uber’s year of reckoning was getting started, Waymo filed a lawsuit accusing Uber of the “calculated theft” of its self-driving car technology. The complaint read like a detective novel and transformed tenuous allies – Alphabet…
- Mitsubishi, Suzuki profits soar on Asia sales while bigger peers struggle in US – Reuters: REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo. Some markets are unstable, but we believe that the ASEAN market is stable, Chief Finance Officer Koji Ikeya said at a briefing. We want to use new vehicle models to lift sales further in the region. Mitsubishi also…
- Tata Motors quarterly profit surges on Jaguar Land Rover sales – Yahoo: Net profit for the quarter ended Dec. 31 came in at 11.99 billion rupees ($187.15 million) compared with 937.7 million rupees in the same quarter a year ago. Tata Motors saw profit in the year-ago quarter hit by lower wholesale volumes and higher…
- Truck ad using Martin Luther King speech draws backlash – Reuters: A TV commercial shown during the Superbowl that used the voice of the late Martin Luther King Jr. to advertise pickup trucks has … The ad for Dodge Ram trucks, seen by millions of football fans during the game’s second quarter, uses the audio of the…
- Jaguar Land Rover Sales in US, Europe Weigh on Tata Profit – Bloomberg: Net income was 12 billion rupees ($187 million) in the quarter through December, Tata Motors said in a statement Monday. That compares with the 23.5 billion-rupee average of 15 analysts estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Profit before tax at its Jaguar…
- Tata Motors Q3 profit rises about 13-fold on higher Jaguar Land Rover sales – Reuters: India’s Tata Motors Ltd reported about a 13-fold rise in quarterly profit on Monday, driven by higher sales from its Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) business after a particularly weak quarter a year earlier. Net profit for the quarter ended Dec. 31 came in at…
- Mitsubishi quarterly profit surges on Asia growth, weak yen – Automotive News: Mitsubishi Motors more than doubled its operating profit in its last quarter as higher sales in Asia and a weaker yen helped the automaker recover from last year’s mileage cheating scandal. The automaker raised its full-year forecast for operating…
- Diesel hit hard as January car sales fall by 6.3% – Autocar: UK car sales dropped by 6.3% in January Petrol and alternatively fuelled cars were up, but not by enough to offset plummeting diesel sales
- UK car sales fell 6 percent in January as diesel demand slumps – Reuters: British new car registrations fell 6.3 percent in January, in part due to customers being put off from buying diesel models which politicians have targeted over air quality concerns, an industry body said. Total new sales stood at 163,615 units with…
- Panasonic hikes outlook after third quarter earnings surge on automotive demand – Reuters: Japan’s Panasonic Corp lifted its outlook for earnings this year after reporting a 23 percent jump in third-quarter operating profit on … a business the firm is trying to strengthen by expanding battery production capacity globally to meet an…
- Ford Ka+ revealed with new Active model and diesel option – Autocar: New hatch range goes on sale later this year, with prices starting at £10,795
- Mitsubishi Motors third quarter profit more than doubles, lifts profit forecast – Reuters: Mitsubishi Motor’s rosy outlook reflects its rebound from the scandal as well as expectations of further growth in Asia and cost savings from its alliance with Nissan Motor Co Ltd, which took a 34 percent stake in the automaker in 2016. Under its…
- Ghosn will be reappointed Renault CEO, paper says – Automotive News: Carlos Ghosn is likely to be reappointed as Renault CEO at the automaker’s next shareholder meeting, Le Figaro reported. Ghosn, 63, had been expected to hand over to a successor in June, when his contract expires, and take a new presiding role at the…
- Nissan earmarks $9.5bn in push to be top-3 China brand – FT: Nissan said its plans to boost sales by 1m vehicles over the next five years would focus on the local brand Venucia, which is built using old Nissan technology, and on Infiniti, Nissan’s luxury brand, both of which it would like to treble in volume….
- First impressions of the new Mercedes A-Class – Autocar: A first chance to pore over the exterior and interior of a static A-Class gives the first clues as to why it’ll likely be a smash-hit success
- Japan’s Suzuki Motor profit jumps 68% in Q3 on strong India sales – Nikkei: Boosted by strong sales in India, Suzuki has been one of the most upbeat about its prospects for full-year operating profit among Japanese automakers, many of which are seeing sales growth curbed by slowing demand in the United States, a major market…
- Thank you, Mitsubishi – Automotive News: Carlos Ghosn’s Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance leapfrogged Volkswagen Group and Toyota Motor to become the world’s top-selling automaker in … But add Mitsubishi’s cool million to Nissan Motor’s record 5.82 million sales and Renault’s 3.76 million…
- VW just helping diesel die – Automotive News: Anyone who had even the smallest hope for the future of the diesel engine might as well forget it. After all the horrible problems resulting from Volkswagen’s cheating on diesel emission testing, there are now more aftershocks. It’s been reported that…
- Complex technology calls for simpler cars – Automotive News: “One of the strongest trends is moving to a central computer,” said Dennis Nobelius, CEO of Zenuity, an automated driving software company formed by Volvo Cars and Autoliv. “Now, in the [Volvo] XC90, you have, like, 110 different ECUs or processing…
- Full autonomy a long way off – Automotive News: Companies testing self-driving cars on California streets gave a peek into the inner workings of their real-world test drives last week. The big takeaway? Many are still a long way from letting drivers take their hands off the wheel. Most manufacturers…
- Nissan to invest $9.5bn into China to boost electric vehicles – Nikkei: The joint venture aims to raise the ratio of electric vehicles in its lineup to 30% by 2022. The ratio of electric vehicles under the Infiniti luxury brand will be increased to 25% by 2025 and 100% by 2025. The investment will be for manufacturing,…
- Sports cars, SUV coming, Lotus says – Automotive News: Lotus plans for two new sports cars by 2020, the first models announced since the U.K. automaker was bought by China’s Zhejiang Geely last year. Lotus also has started work on its first SUV, CEO Jean-Marc Gales told Automotive News Europe. He said the…
- Wall Street sours on Hackett’s Ford – Automotive News: Ford shares last week fell under $11, lower than when Jim Hackett became CEO last May, despite big gains for the broader market in those eight months. Ford’s earnings outlook for the year dimmed in light of lower-than-expected 2017 results. And the…
- SpaceX aims big in ever-evolving rocket environment – FT: SpaceX, Elon Musk’s private space company, hopes to launch its Falcon Heavy rocket from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday. Made from three boosters of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle strapped together, it would be the biggest rocket to make it to…
- Why we are in danger of overestimating AI – FT: Referring to recent warnings about the threat to humanity from an all-powerful AI, he says: “If we have Elon Musk and [Oxford university’s] Nick Bostrom talking about ‘superintelligence’, we need [sceptics like] Gary Marcus to provide a reality check.”…
- Ram’s ‘Martin Luther King’ ad sparks backlash – Automotive News: In a five-ad Super Bowl blitz, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles used a Martin Luther King Jr. speech, a classic scene from “Jurassic Park” and Queen’s “We Will Rock You” to pitch the Jeep and Ram brands. But the MLK ad drew heat on social media with some…
- Nissan set to pour $9.5bn into China – Nikkei: By 2019, a total of six models will be introduced under the brands of Nissan, Dongfeng Motor’s Venucia and Dongfeng Motor Group. The joint venture aims to raise the ratio of electric vehicles in its lineup to 30% by 2022. The ratio of electric vehicles…
- Nissan to Invest $9 Billion in China in Race for EV Dominance – Bloomberg: Nissan, maker of the Leaf EV and already the largest Japanese carmaker in China, is planning to introduce 20 electrified models by 2022 in China. Under the plan, electrified cars will account for 30 percent of all sales in 2022, and by 2025, all…
- Driverless car tests roll out on south China streets – FT: The same day, Jingchi said it launched a similar pilot project. It said it would hold a three-month, public test ride programme for highly autonomous vehicles in China in a different part of Guangzhou, known as Biotech Island. Both Jingchi and Pony.ai…
- BMW preparing M2 Gran Coupe? – Autocar: BMW is preparing to expand its lineup in the near future with the first-ever 2 Series Gran Coupe, and a new report says it may get an M variant alongside the base versions. According to Autocar UK, the Bavarian manufacturer has been testing a Gran…
- Nissan to pump $9.5 billion into China business, eyes top three spot – Reuters: Venucia, which Nissan established jointly with Dongfeng, is another key focus. The brand began selling cars in 2012, competing with China’s low-cost, no-frills indigenous brands such as those run by Geely and Great Wall Motor. Seki said shoring up…
- Toyota’s Way Changed the World’s Factories. Now Comes the Retool – Bloomberg: Their task is to evaluate how core concepts like kaizen, or continuous improvement, can be applied to new businesses that include car sharing and consumer robots. The person in charge is 59-year-old Shigeki Tomoyama, a career Toyota executive who…